Benedict Departs Vatican for the Last Time as Pope

Pope Benedict XVI bade his final farewell to the faithful today, lifting off from the Vatican in a white helicopter as the first pope to resign in six centuries.

Just before 5 p.m. local time, Benedict, 85, walked out of the Vatican for the last time as pope, waving to a cheering crowd in the Courtyard of San Damaso as he entered a black Mercedes for the short drive to a nearby heliport.

In a tweet sent from Benedict XVI ?@Pontifex as his motorcade rolled to the heliport, Benedict said, "Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives."

READ MORE: Pope Benedict XVI Delivers Farewell Address

With church bells ringing across Rome, he then embarked on the 15-minute flight to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence just south of the city and his home for the coming months when he'll be recognized by the church as His Holiness Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus.

When Benedict landed in the gardens at Castel Gandolfo, he was greeted by a group of dignitaries, including the governor of the Vatican City state Giovanni Bertello, two bishops, the director of the pontifical villas, and the mayor and parish priest. Off the helicopter and back into a car, Benedict headed to the palace.

In the plaza at Castel Gandolfo, a crowd of supporters, many waving flags or banners, some peering out of windows, gathered to welcome Benedict. When Benedict finally appeared on the balcony, the crowd erupted in applause.

"Thank you for your friendship, your affection," Benedict told them.

Benedict said he was "just a pilgrim starting the last lap of his earthly journey."

After his brief address to the crowd, Benedict waved one last time and walked back into the palace as the sun set around the square.

9 Men Who Could Replace Pope Benedict XVI

In his final remarks earlier in the day to colleagues in the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict had promised "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his eventual successor.

Benedict, in a morning meeting at the Vatican, urged the cardinals to act "like an orchestra" to find "harmony" moving forward.

Benedict spent a quiet final day as pope, bidding farewell to his colleagues and moving on to a secluded life of prayer, far from the grueling demands of the papacy and the scandals that have recently plagued the church.

His first order of business was a morning meeting with the cardinals in the Clementine Hall, a room in the Apostolic Palace. Despite the historical nature of Benedict's resignation, not all cardinals attended the event.

Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, thanked Benedict for his service to the church during the eight years he has spent as pontiff.

Pope Benedict's Last Sunday Prayer Service

For some U.S. Catholics in Rome for the historic occasion, Benedict's departure is bittersweet. Christopher Kerzich, a Chicago resident studying at the Pontifical North American College of Rome, said Wednesday he is sad to see Benedict leave, but excited to see what comes next.

"Many Catholics have come to love this pontiff, this very humble man," Kerzich said. "He is a man who's really fought this and prayed this through and has peace in his heart. I take comfort in that and I think a lot of Catholics should take comfort in that."

Read More..

Benedict: Pope aware of his flaws?

Pope Benedict XVI delivers his last Angelus Blessing to thousands of pilgrims gathered in Saint Peter's Square on February 24.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Sister Mary Ann Walsh: Pope Benedict acknowledged that he made mistakes


• Walsh: In firestorm over scholarly quotes about Islam, he went to great lengths to atone


• Walsh: Similarly, he quickly reversed a decision that had angered Jews and repaired ties


• Even his stepping down is a nod to his humanity and his love of the church, she says

Editor's note: Sister Mary Ann Walsh is director of media relations for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Northeast Regional Community. She is a former foreign correspondent at Catholic News Service (CNS) in Rome and the editor of "John Paul II: A Light for the World," "Benedict XVI: Essays and Reflections on his Papacy," and "From Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI."

(CNN) -- One of the Bible's paradoxical statements comes from St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians: "Power is made perfect in infirmity."

The poetic statement proclaims that when we are weak, we are strong. Pope Benedict XVI's stepping down from what many consider one of the most powerful positions in the world proves it. In a position associated with infallibility -- though that refers to formal proclamations on faith and morals -- the pope declares his weakness.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh

His acceptance of frailty speaks realistically about humanity: We grow old, weaken, and eventually die. A job, even one guided by the Holy Spirit, as we Roman Catholics believe, can become too much for us.

Acceptance of human frailty has marked this papacy. We all make mistakes, but the pope makes them on a huge stage.

He was barely into his papacy, for example, when he visited Regensburg, Germany, where he once taught theology. Like many a professor, he offered a provocative statement to get the conversation going. To introduce the theme of his lecture, the pope quoted from an account of a dialogue between the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an unnamed Muslim scholar, sometime near the end of the 14th century -- a quote that was misinterpreted by some as a condemnation of Mohammed and Islam.

Opinion: 'Gay lobby' behind pope's resignation? Not likely

Twice, the pope emphasized that he was quoting someone else's words. Unfortunately, the statement about Islam was taken as insult, not a discussion opener, and sparked rage throughout the Muslim world.

The startled pope had to explain himself. He apologized and traveled two months later to Istanbul's Blue Mosque, where he stood shoeless in prayer beside the Grand Mufti of Istanbul. Later he hosted Muslim leaders at the Vatican at the start of a Catholic-Muslim forum for dialogue. It was a human moment -- a mistake, an apology and atonement -- all round.

A similar controversy erupted when he tried to bring the schismatic Society of St. Pius X back into the Roman Catholic fold.

In a grand gesture toward reconciliation, he lifted the excommunication of four of its bishops, unaware that one, Richard Williamson, was a Holocaust denier. This outraged many Jews. Subsequently the Vatican said the bishop had not been vetted, and in a bow to modernity said officials at least should have looked him up on the Internet.

In humble response, Benedict reiterated his condemnation of anti-Semitism and told Williamson that he must recant his Holocaust views to be fully reinstated. Again, his admission of a mistake and an effort to mend fences.

News: Scandal threatens to overshadow pope's final days

Pope Benedict XVI came from a Catholic Bavarian town. Childhood family jaunts included trips to the shrine of the Black Madonna, Our Lady of Altotting. He entered the seminary at the age of 13. He became a priest, scholar and theologian. He lived his life in service to the church. Even in resigning from the papacy, he embraces the monastic life to pray for a church he has ever loved.

With hindsight, his visit to the tomb of 13th century Pope Celestine V, a Benedictine monk who resigned from the papacy eight centuries before, becomes poignant.

In 2009, on a visit to Aquila, Italy, Benedict left at Celestine's tomb the pallium, a stole-like vestment that signifies episcopal authority, that Benedict had worn for his installation as pope. The gesture takes on more meaning as the monkish Benedict steps down.

We expect the pope to be perfect. Catholics hold him to be the vicar of Christ on earth. He stands as a spiritual leader for much of the world. Statesmen visit him from around the globe. He lives among splendid architecture, in the shadow of the domed St. Peter's Basilica. All testify to an almost surreal omnipotence.

Complete coverage of the pope's resignation

In this world, however, walked a vulnerable, human person. And in a paradox of life, his most human moment -- giving up the power of office -- may prove to be his most potent, delivering a message that, as St. Paul noted many centuries ago, "Power is made perfect in infirmity."

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.

Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mary Ann Walsh.

Read More..

New Singapore ambassadors to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland

SINGAPORE: The government has appointed Mr Wong Kwok Pun as Singapore's first resident Ambassador to the State of Qatar, Mr Lawrence Anderson as Singapore's next Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Mr Tee Tua Ba as Singapore's Ambassador to Switzerland (resident in Singapore).

Mr Wong and Mr Anderson will assume their post on 17 March 2013 and 30 March 2013 respectively.

Mr Wong joined the Singapore Foreign Service in 1975. His most recent appointment was as Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (August 2009 to February 2013), with concurrent accreditation to the Kingdom of Bahrain (January 2010 to February 2013).

Mr Anderson joined the Singapore Foreign Service in 1984. His most recent appointment was as Director/Special Duties in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and concurrently as Diplomat-in-Residence at the Civil Service College (February 2011 to February 2013).

Mr Tee was Singapore's Non-Resident Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from April 2008 to December 2012.

- CNA/de

Read More..

Pope: At times 'Lord seemed to sleep'

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Benedict XVI says there were "times when the Lord seemed to sleep" in past 8 years


• Benedict: The Roman Catholic Church has been through stormy waters, but God won't let it sink"


• I really felt all the support and all the love, the prayers," says a priest in the crowd


• He is to leave office at 8 p.m. Thursday for a life of seclusion and prayer

Rome (CNN) -- In front of rapt crowds, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of moments of struggle as well as joy Wednesday during his final public address from a stage set up in St. Peter's Square.

In an unusually personal message, he said there had been "many days of sunshine" but also "times when the water was rough ... and the Lord seemed to sleep."

But even as the church passes through stormy seas, God will "not let her sink," he added, in what was his final general audience before he steps down Thursday evening.

Those words will be seen by many as a comment on the series of child sex abuse scandals and corruption claims that have rocked the Roman Catholic Church in the course of his pontificate.

Benedict recounted how when he was asked to be pope eight years ago, he had prayed for God's guidance and had felt his presence "every day" since.

"It was a part of the journey of the church that has had moments of joy and light, but also moments that were not easy," he said.

Vatican reveals Pope Benedict's new title

'Tough choices'

Dressed all in white and looking serene, the pope used his last general audience to call for a renewal of faith and speak of his own spiritual journey through eight years as leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

Benedict thanked the cardinals, the clergy in Rome, Vatican officials and priests worldwide for their work, as well as their congregations, saying "the heart of a pope extends to the whole world."

Knowing his strength was fading, he had taken the step of resignation well aware of its gravity and novelty, but also "with a deep peace of mind," he said.

"Loving the church also means having the courage to make tough choices," he said, as he called on the faithful to pray for him and the new pope.

Benedict gave an insight into the life of the pontiff, describing it as without any kind of privacy, with his time devoted entirely to the church -- perhaps particularly difficult for a man known for his love of scholarship.

His life in retirement will be "simply a return to the private place. My decision is to forgo the exercise of active ministry, not revoke it. In order to return to private life, not to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences and so on," he said.

As he finished, cheers erupted from the tens of thousands gathered in the square -- acknowledged by Benedict with an open-armed embrace.

'Support and love'

Benedict's final papal audience

HIDE CAPTION

<<

<

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

>

>>

Vatican officials said 50,000 tickets had been handed out for Benedict's last general audience -- but authorities said they had prepared for as many as 200,000 people to show up to witness the historic moment in person.

The pope in retirement: What to expect

Benedict, who spoke first in Italian, also gave greetings in French, German and English, among other languages, reflecting the church's global reach.

CNN iReporter Joel Camaya, a priest from the Philippines who is studying in Rome, said it was very moving to be among those gathered in the huge plaza.

Waves of applause rose up to meet Benedict, especially when he addressed the pilgrims in different languages. "I really felt all the support and all the love, the prayers, from those who were present," he said.

After the pope left, people's mood was festive, with many chatting or singing, Camaya said, but at the same time nostalgic because it's the last time they will hear Benedict speak.

"Especially for people who have got used coming here for the audience and for the (Sunday) Angelus, it's something to be missed," he said.

Those lucky enough to have tickets for the final audience listened from seats in front of St. Peter's Basilica. Among them were many of the Roman Catholic Church's senior clergy. Others packed around the edges of the square and surrounding side streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of the pontiff.

Among the crowds were groups of pilgrims who had traveled to Rome for the special occasion, as well as local residents and curious visitors keen to share in the moment.

Opinion: Benedict a pope aware of his flaws

Benedict arrived and left in his Popemobile, allowing him to pass close by many people in St. Peter's Square.

Standing in the glass-topped vehicle, flanked by security, he waved as he slowly made his way along pathways through the crowds. Some waved flags and banners as they stood under cold but clear skies.

Normally in winter, the pope would give his weekly Wednesday general audience inside a hall within Vatican City, but the event was moved outside because of the anticipated huge crowds.

Pontiff emeritus

The pope didn't give the usual brief personal greetings to people afterward, but was to meet with delegations of heads of state in Vatican City.

Benedict, who stunned the world's Catholics when he announced his resignation just over two weeks ago, will leave office at 8 p.m. local time Thursday.

At that point, a transition period will begin, as around 115 cardinals gather in Rome to pick a successor in a secretive election known as a conclave.

The Vatican has been rewriting the rules to cope with an almost unprecedented situation -- Benedict is the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years.

He will meet with the cardinals Wednesday and Thursday, before being flown by helicopter to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo.

Pope to resign: Your thoughts

There, from a balcony, he will greet crowds one last time before his resignation takes effect and the Swiss Guards, who by tradition protect the pope, ceremonially leave the residence's gate.

More details were given Tuesday of how the 85-year-old's life in retirement will play out.

He will keep the papal title Benedict XVI, rather than reverting to the name Joseph Ratzinger, and will be referred to as "his holiness," said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman.

He will also go by the title his holiness "pontiff emeritus" or "pope emeritus."

Interference fears

Pope Benedict XVI wearing red shoes.

Living out of the public eye in a small monastery within Vatican City, Benedict will wear a simple white robe, without the papal red cape, and will swap his red shoes for brown ones. He is expected to devote his time to prayer and study.

Catholic author Michael Walsh told CNN he was unsurprised by Benedict's desire for more privacy.

"He's a rather private man. He wants to get back to his books and his cats, he wants to get back to prayer," he said. "He's obviously coming towards the end of his life -- he's 85 -- so I understand that."

But, Walsh added, "what I don't understand is that he says he wants to be part of it all, which could be disastrous if you take it at face value," referring to Benedict's promise not to abandon the church.

"The notion that you have two people that claim to be pope, in a sense, is really going to be very confusing," Walsh said.

Vatican officials have said they don't anticipate any interference from Benedict as a new pope takes office.

However, his influence will be felt in as much as he appointed 67 of the cardinals who will enter the conclave.

Whoever his successor may be will have plenty on his plate, from allegations swirling in the Italian media that gay clergy may have made themselves vulnerable to blackmail by male prostitutes -- a claim forcefully denied by the Vatican -- to the festering issue of the church's handling of child abuse by priests.

Scandal flared again over the weekend, as Scotland's Roman Catholic archbishop was accused in a UK newspaper report of "inappropriate behavior" with priests. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who contests the allegations, resigned Monday and said he would not attend the conclave.

The Most Rev. Philip Tartaglia, archbishop of Glasgow, will take his place until a new archbishop is appointed, the Vatican said Wednesday. "These are painful and distressing times," Tartaglia is quoted as saying.

The Vatican said Monday that a report by three cardinals into leaks of secret Vatican documents, ordered by Benedict last year and seen only by him, would be passed on to the new pontiff.

Opinion: How next pope must tackle child sex abuse

Cardinals' conclave

Meanwhile, the cardinals who must elect the new pope are already gathering in Rome, Lombardi said.

The dean cardinal will on Friday summon the cardinals to a general congregation, Lombardi said. That could come as soon as Monday, although the date is not yet fixed.

The cardinal-electors will then decide exactly when to hold the conclave, during which they will select a peer via paper ballot. The voting process will end when only when one cardinal gains two-thirds support.

After his resignation, Benedict, who cited the frailty of age as the reason he resigned, will no longer use the Fisherman's Ring, the symbol of the pope, Lombardi said. The ring will be destroyed, along with Benedict's papal seal, after his departure from office.

Smoke signals: How is a new pope elected?

CNN's Barbie Latza Nadeau reported from Rome and Laura Smith-Spark wrote and reported from London. Vatican correspondent John Allen and Sarah Brown contributed to this report.

Read More..

Anti-virus firm makes new revelation on Stuxnet

Updated at 11:22 a.m. ET

LONDON The sophisticated cyberweapon which targeted an Iranian nuclear plant is older than previously believed, an anti-virus firm said Tuesday, peeling back another layer of mystery on a series of attacks attributed to U.S. and Israeli intelligence.

The Stuxnet worm, aimed at the centrifuges in Iran's Natanz plant, transformed the cybersecurity field because it was the first known computer attack specifically designed to cause physical damage. The precise origins of the worm remain unclear, but until now the earliest samples of Stuxnet had been dated to 2009.

Security experts generally agree that Stuxnet was an attempt to sabotage Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges, which can be used to make fuel for reactors or weapons-usable material for atomic bombs. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Play Video

Stuxnet: Computer worm opens new era of warfare

Play Video

Stuxnet copycats: Let the hacking begin

As "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft reported last year, Stuxnet was incredibly complicated and sophisticated, beyond the cutting edge. By the time it was first detected in June 2010, it had been out in the wild for a year without drawing anyone's attention, and seemed to spread by way of USB thumb drives, not over the Internet.

By the fall of 2010, the consensus was that Iran's top secret uranium enrichment plant at Natanz was the target and that Stuxnet was a carefully constructed weapon designed to be carried into the plant on a corrupted laptop or thumb drive, then infect the system, disguise its presence, move through the network, changing computer code and subtly alter the speed of the centrifuges without the Iranians ever noticing, Kroft reported.

"Stuxnet's entire purpose is to control centrifuges," Liam O Murchu, an operations manager for Symantec, told Kroft. "To make centrifuges speed up past what they're meant to spin at and to damage them. Certainly it would damage the uranium enrichment facility and they would need to be replaced."

Last June, The New York Times traced the origins of the top-secret program back to 2006.

In a new report issued late Tuesday, Symantec Corp. pushed that timeline further back, saying it had found a primitive version of Stuxnet circulating online in 2007 and that elements of the program had been in place as far back as 2005.

One independent expert who examined the report said it showed that the worm's creators were particularly far-sighted.

"What it looks like is that somebody's been thinking about this for a long, long time — the better part of a decade," said Alan Woodward, a computer science professor at the University of Surrey. "It really points to a very clever bunch of people behind all of this."

Nuclear Iran: Sites and potential targets

A look at the locations where Iran carries out work linked to its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons

The Times reported that President George W. Bush ordered the deployment of Stuxnet against Iran in a bid to put the brakes on its atomic energy program, detailing how the worm tampered with the operation of Natanz's centrifuge machines to send them spinning out of control.

President Obama, who succeeded Bush shortly after the first attacks, expanded the campaign, the report said.

U.S. and Israeli officials have long declined to comment publicly on Stuxnet or their alleged involvement in creating and deploying the computer worm.

Symantec's report suggests that an intermediate version of the worm — Stuxnet 0.5 — was completed in November 2007. That worm lacked some of the sophistication of its descendant, Symantec said, and was designed to interfere with the centrifuges by opening and closing the valves which control the flow of uranium gas, causing a potentially damaging buildup in pressure.

That approach was dropped in later, improved versions of the Stuxnet code.

Symantec said the servers used to control the primitive worm were set up in November 2005, suggesting that Stuxnet's trailblazing authors were plotting out their attack at a time when many parts of the Internet now taken for granted were not yet in place. Twitter did not exist, Facebook was still largely limited to U.S. college campuses, and YouTube was in its infancy.

Woodward said that had troubling implications.

"Clearly these were very forward-thinking, clever people that were doing this," he said. "There's no reason to think that they're less forward-thinking now. What are they up to?"

Read More..

Bring on the Cuts: Some Want the Sequester

Mark Lucas wouldn't mind seeing America's defense budget cut by billions.

"There's quite a bit of waste within the military," Lucas, who serves as Iowa state director for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), told ABC News. "Being in there for 10 years, I've seen quite a bit of it."

With the budget sequester set to kick in on Friday, the former Army ranger is among a small chorus of conservatives saying bring on the cuts.

Read more: Bernanke on Sequester Cuts: Too Much, Too Soon

Lucas cited duplicative equipment purchases, military-run golf courses and lavish food on larger bases -- unlike the chow he endured at a combat operations post in Afghanistan with about 120 other soldiers.

"These guys would have very good food, and I'm talking almost like a buffet style, shrimp and steak once a week, ice cream, all this stuff," Lucas said. "They had Burger Kings and Pizza Huts and McDonald's. And I said to myself, 'Do we really need this?'"

Lucas and AFP would like to see the sequester modified, with federal agencies granted more authority to target the cuts and avoid the more dire consequences. But the group wants the cuts to happen.

"We're very supportive of the sequestration cuts but would prefer to see more targeted cuts at the same level," said the group's spokesman, Levi Russell.

As President Obama and his Cabinet members are sounding the sequester alarm bells, AFP's willingness shows that not everyone is running for the hills.

Charles Dharapak/Pool/AP Photo

Speaker Boehner Hopes Senate 'Gets Off Their Ass' Watch Video

Sequester Showdown: Automatic Spending Cuts Loom Watch Video

President Obama Details Consequences of Sequester Cuts Watch Video

Read more: 57 Terrible Consequences of the Sequester

Obama traveled to Norfolk, Va., on Tuesday to speak at a shipyard about cuts and layoffs to defense contractors. In his most recent weekly radio address, he told Americans that the Navy has already kept an aircraft carrier home instead of deploying it to the Persian Gulf. And last week, he spoke before national TV cameras at the White House, warning that first responders would be laid off.

Homeland Security Secretary Jane Napolitano has warned that the sequester will "leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to attacks." Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has warned that air travel will back up after the Federal Aviation Administration furloughs air traffic controllers. And the heads of 18 other federal agencies told Congress that terrible things will happen unless the sequester is pushed off.

Some Republicans have accused the president of scaremongering to gin up popular support for tax hikes. Obama has warned of calamity and demanded compromise in the next breath, and a few Republicans have rejected this as a false choice.

Read more: Boehner Hopes Senate 'Gets Off Their Ass'

"I don't think the president's focused on trying to find a solution to the sequester," House Speaker John Boehner told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. "For 16 months, the president's been traveling all over the country holding rallies, instead of sitting down with Senate leaders in order to try to forge an agreement over there in order to move the bill."

After Obama spoke to governors at the this week, Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told ABC News' Jonathan Karl outside the White House that the president is exaggerating the sequester's consequences.

"He's trying to scare the American people," Jindal said. "He's trying to distort the impact."

Read More..

Vatican 'Gay lobby'? Probably not

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Benedict XVI not stepping down under pressure from 'gay lobby,' Allen says


• Allen: Benedict is a man who prefers the life of the mind to the nuts and bolts of government


• However, he says, much of the pope's time has been spent putting out fires

Editor's note: John L. Allen Jr. is CNN's senior Vatican analyst and senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter.

(CNN) -- Suffice it to say that of all possible storylines to emerge, heading into the election of a new pope, sensational charges of a shadowy "gay lobby" (possibly linked to blackmail), whose occult influence may have been behind the resignation of Benedict XVI, would be right at the bottom of the Vatican's wish list.

Proof of the Vatican's irritation came with a blistering statement Saturday complaining of "unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories," even suggesting the media is trying to influence the papal election.

Two basic questions have to be asked about all this. First, is there really a secret dossier about a network of people inside the Vatican who are linked by their sexual orientation, as Italian newspaper reports have alleged? Second, is this really why Benedict XVI quit?

John L. Allen Jr.

The best answers, respectively, are "maybe" and "probably not."

It's a matter of record that at the peak of last year's massive Vatican leaks crisis, Benedict XVI created a commission of three cardinals to investigate the leaks. They submitted an eyes-only report to the pope in mid-December, which has not been made public.

It's impossible to confirm whether that report looked into the possibility that people protecting secrets about their sex lives were involved with the leaks, but frankly, it would be surprising if it didn't.

There are certainly compelling reasons to consider the hypothesis. In 2007, a Vatican official was caught by an Italian TV network on hidden camera arranging a date through a gay-oriented chat room, and then taking the young man back to his Vatican apartment. In 2010, a papal ceremonial officer was caught on a wiretap arranging liaisons through a Nigerian member of a Vatican choir. Both episodes played out in full public view, and gave the Vatican a black eye.

Pope Benedict XVI

HIDE CAPTION

<<

<

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

>

>>

In that context, it would be a little odd if the cardinals didn't at least consider the possibility that insiders leading a double life might be vulnerable to pressure to betray the pope's confidence. That would apply not just to sex, but also potential conflicts of other sorts too, such as financial interests.

Vatican officials have said Benedict may authorize giving the report to the 116 cardinals who will elect his successor, so they can factor it into their deliberations. The most immediate fallout is that the affair is likely to strengthen the conviction among many cardinals that the next pope has to lead a serious house-cleaning inside the Vatican's bureaucracy.

It seems a stretch, however, to suggest this is the real reason Benedict is leaving. For the most part, one should probably take the pope at his word, that old age and fatigue are the motives for his decision.

That said, it's hard not to suspect that the meltdowns and controversies that have dogged Benedict XVI for the last eight years are in the background of why he's so tired. In 2009, at the height of another frenzy surrounding the lifting of the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying traditionalist bishop, Benedict dispatched a plaintive letter to the bishops of the world, voicing hurt for the way he'd been attacked and apologizing for the Vatican's mishandling of the situation.

Even if Benedict didn't resign because of any specific crisis, including this latest one, such anguish must have taken its toll. Benedict is a teaching pope, a man who prefers the life of the mind to the nuts and bolts of government, yet an enormous share of his time and energy has been consumed trying to put out internal fires.

It's hard to know why Benedict XVI is stepping off the stage, but I doubt it is because of a "gay lobby."

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John L. Allen Jr.

Read More..

JPMorgan to slash 19,000 jobs by end-2014

NEW YORK: US banking giant JPMorgan Chase plans to axe up to 19,000 jobs by the end of 2014 as it seeks to rein in costs, the company said Tuesday in an investor presentation.

JPMorgan Chase intends the majority of the cuts -- between 13,000 to 15,000 -- in the mortgage banking division, where the company spent $9.1 billion in 2012.

Another 3,000 to 4,000 jobs will be eliminated in the non-mortgage areas of its consumer and community banking division.

JPMorgan Chase estimated its full-year expenses will drop by $3 billion in 2014 from the 2012 level as the company seeks corporate and investment bank cost synergies, according to the presentation.

JPMorgan shares were down 0.5 percent in morning trade amid an overall rising market.

The Wall Street bank reported earnings of $21.3 billion in 2012, up from $19 billion a year earlier, but revenue that slightly missed market expectations.

The jump in profits came despite an embarrassing $6.2 billion trading loss stemming from a London trader nicknamed the London "whale."

The trading losses led to several resignations and reassignments and resulted in a lower 2012 take-home pay for JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

Could your child be a bully?

Boys and girls use physical violence to exert their power, researchers say.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A sociologist describes bullying in schools as "social combat"


• Students are fighting to improve their social status through violence or rumors


• Bullies are often bullied themselves as they fight to the top, experts say

Editor's note: Don't miss the premiere of "The Bully Effect" on "AC360" at 10 p.m. ET Thursday, Feburary 28. And visit CNN.com Health on Wednesday, February 27, for our story on how technology has changed bullying.

(CNN) -- Eva was a bully. Tall for her age, she used her height to intimidate her peers. She made fun of those without designer clothes and got suspended several times for fighting.

She was also well-liked, outgoing, funny -- and a victim of bullying herself.

"When you're in junior high, you're just trying to figure out who you are," the 24-year-old remembers. She says she bullied others because she was, as were most kids, insecure.

As a parent, you probably have a picture in your head of the kid you'd vote Most Likely To Bully Others. He's burly, wears a letter (or leather) jacket and has been a senior longer than most students are in high school.

But experts say the bullies tormenting students nowadays aren't like the ones we see on the big screen. It's not just a small group of jocks, or the loner stoner pushing kids into lockers between periods. It can be almost anyone, at any time. And the most likely targets of bullies? The bullies themselves.

"AC360": Fighting for your bullied child

Sociologist Robert Faris calls it "social combat." He says the majority of bullying takes place in the middle of a school's social hierarchy, where students are jostling with each other for higher status.

Think of it like a giant game of king of the hill. Each kid is struggling to make it to the top, not afraid to step on others to get there. The closer you get to being king, the more vicious the competition gets between rivals.

"Bullying works," Faris says simply. "When kids pick on other kids, their status increases."

Faris teamed up with CNN's "AC360" in 2011 to study bullying at a high school in Long Island, New York. Researchers asked more than 700 students about their friendship circles and bullying behaviors. Faris has also completed similar studies in rural North Carolina -- where the demographics were different, but the results were the same.

Faris found 56% of students surveyed were involved in aggression, victimization or both at any given time. The main motive behind a student's bullying was to increase his or her popularity. The higher a student rose on the social ladder, the more likely they were to bully others -- and to be bullied themselves.

"There's always some tension in these friendship groups," Faris says. "Who's closer to whom and who's hanging out together, and I think that's what's driving a lot of these kids."

The same is true for middle-school students, according to UCLA psychology professor Jaana Juvonen, who's been studying bullying since the mid-1990s.

Juvonen and her team recently followed more than 1,800 students through seventh and eighth grade to determine how physical aggression and the spreading of rumors played a part in social prominence.

"What we've learned about bullying during the last decade or so is that it takes many forms," Juvonen says. "Some of these forms are extremely hard to detect. They're covert."

Bullying over food allergies

Administrators have cracked down on physical aggression in schools, enforcing zero tolerance policies for fighting between students. But Juvonen says that has led to subtler forms of bullying.

Rumors -- most often about a student's sexuality or insulting family members -- play a big role, according to Juvonen's research.

Faris recalls he got his "ass kicked" regularly as a child. Two brothers used hunt him down every day after school as he walked home from the bus stop.

But he says a daily beating was much less painful than the isolation he felt when his family moved across the country and he couldn't seem to fit in. "That was much harder to deal with than a bloody nose," he remembers.

In his later research, Faris found friends often exclude each other from gossip sessions or parties to put down a rival and boost their own status. Social media has also increased the prominence of this abstract form of bullying.

"The status competition is always there; there's no break from it," he says. "They go home and they get online and they see their friends doing things together and they're not invited, or worse, people are harassing them."

If the 2004 movie "Mean Girls" taught us anything, it's that girls are the queens of covert bullying; no one could make you feel as badly about the way you look as the popular clique. Juvonen's study, however, found boys and girls spread rumors to boost their social status -- and that both genders use physical aggression to assert power.

Eva knows this firsthand. She and her friends used to "jump" other girls, pulling their hair or punching them just because they talked to the wrong guy.

What really makes schools safer?

"I look back and shake my head," says Eva, who asked CNN not to use her last name because she plans to apply for graduate school. But "when you're in elementary school and junior high, there's nothing else. We don't have responsibilities. We don't have skills. We buy candy and do homework."

"Part of the problem here is that kids are kind of stuck in a cage," Faris agrees. "They don't have formal roles and responsibilities. ... They have to work status out for themselves."

And if we put adults in a similar situation, he says, we'd see the same behavior.

For that reason, Faris advocates programs and activities that de-emphasize social status and re-emphasize the qualities of a good friend. He hopes that one day students will leave high school with a small group of close friends, rather than the 300 or 400 they know on Facebook.

Tips for parents

1. Be a good example -- kids often learn bullying behavior from their parents.

2. Teach your child what it means to be a good friend.

3. Make your home a safe haven for kids after school.

4. Use teachable moments on TV to show the power of bystanders.

5. Listen. Don't be in denial about incidents that are brought to your attention.

Juvonen says anti-bullying programs should focus on bystanders -- teaching kids that watching is just as bad as doing the bullying yourself. Studies in Canada have shown, she says, that if a child intervenes, the bullying incident stops within seconds.

Juvonen suggests parents use teachable moments on TV or in the news to show children right from wrong in a bullying situation. "They could be the ones pointing out to their kids that they have a lot of power as bystanders," she says.

Juvonen knows it's unreasonable to expect a child to be brave on his or her own; no one wants to become the next victim. So she suggests teaching kids about the weight of a group.

"Bullying involves this imbalance of power where the bully has the high status and is using this status," she says. "You can try to offset the power balance by telling kids to join one another as they try to intervene."

Parents also need to be aware of how easy it is for children to get sucked in to this social combat, Juvonen says. They can't be in denial about incidents that are brought to their attention.

"Anyone in that situation should be asking, 'What's going on?' 'What is it about these situations that brings about this kind of behavior?' " Parents should be having frequent conversations about what's happening at school, know who their children are hanging out with and keep an eye out for warning signs that something's not quite right, she says.

"The parent's role is really to be there as a buffer, be the one who listens."

Rejection, bullying are risk factors among shooters

Before she was a bully, Eva was a victim, she says. Older kids would call her names or hold her down to show they were stronger. She's the baby in the family, she says, and her parents didn't have time to pay attention to what was going on.

"(Bullying) comes from home, from family members," she says. "We hear our cousins and uncles talking crap about someone. We think it's funny. We think it's cool."

Eva never faced consequences for bullying, other than her suspensions. She believes that if someone had sat her down and told her that bullying was wrong, she would have listened. For years, she worried that one of her former victims would invite her on the "Maury Show" for a face-to-face showdown. She still feels badly about the pain she inflicted.

"I can't take it back," she says. "But if I could do it all over again, I wouldn't do what I did."

Did you ever bully anyone? Share your story in the comments below or on iReport.

Read More..

At least 18 tourists die in balloon crash in Egypt

Updated 9:02 a.m. EST

LUXOR, Egypt A hot air balloon flying over Egypt's ancient city of Luxor caught fire and crashed into a sugar cane field on Tuesday, killing at least 19 foreign tourists, a security official said. The death toll rose Tuesday afternoon after a British tourist died of his injuries.

It was one of the worst accidents involving tourists in Egypt and is likely to push the key tourism industry deeper into recession.

The casualties included French, British, Belgian, Hungarian, Japanese nationals and nine tourists from Hong Kong, Luxor Governor Ezzat Saad told reporters.

Three survivors of the crash -- two British tourists and one Egyptian -- were taken to a local hospital. Local media reports said the pilot was among the survivors. One of the British tourists eventually succumbed to his injuries.

According to the Egyptian security official, the balloon was carrying at least 20 tourists and over Luxor when it caught fire, which triggered an explosion in its gas canister. It then plunged at least 1,000 feet from the sky.

The balloon crashed into a sugar cane field outside al-Dhabaa village just west of Luxor, 320 miles south of Cairo, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Egyptians inspect the site where a hot air balloon exploded over the ancient temple city of Luxor on February 26, 2013.

/

STR/AFP/Getty Images

Bodies of the dead tourists were scattered across the field around the remnants of the balloon. An Associated Press reporter at the crash site counted eight bodies as they were put into body bags and taken away. The security official said all 18 bodies have been recovered.

The official said foul play has been ruled out.

Egypt's civil aviation minister, Wael el-Maadawi, flew to Luxor to lead the investigation into the crash.

The head of Japan Travel Bureau's Egypt branch, Atsushi Imaeda, confirmed that four Japanese died in the crash. He said two were a couple in their 60s and from Tokyo. Details on the other two were not immediately available.

In Hong Kong, a travel agency said nine of the tourists that were aboard the balloon were natives of the semiautonomous Chinese city. There was a "very big chance that all nine have perished," said Raymond Ng, a spokesman for the agency. The nine, he said, included five women and four men from three families.

They were traveling with six other Hong Kong residents on a 10-day tour of Egypt.

Ng said an escort of the nine tourists watched the balloon from the ground catching fire around 7 a.m. and plunging to the ground two minutes later.

In Britain, tour operator Thomas Cook confirmed that two British tourists were dead and two were in hospital.

"What happened in Luxor this morning is a terrible tragedy and the thoughts of everyone in Thomas Cook are with our guests, their family and friends," said Peter Fankhauser, CEO of Thomas Cook UK & Continental Europe.

"We have a very experienced team in resort with the two guests in the local hospital, and we're providing our full support to the family and friends of the deceased at this difficult time," he said.

In Paris, a diplomatic official said French tourists were among those involved in the accident, but would give no details on how many, or whether French citizens were among those killed.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to be publicly named according to government policy, the official said French authorities were working with their Egyptian counterparts to clarify what happened. French media reports said two French tourists were among the dead but the official wouldn't confirm that.

Hot air ballooning, usually at sunrise over the famed Karnak and Luxor temples as well as the Valley of the Kings, is a popular pastime for tourists visiting the area.

The site of the accident has seen past crashes. In 2009, 16 tourists were injured when their balloon struck a cellphone transmission tower. A year earlier, seven tourists were injured in a similar crash.

Egypt's tourism industry has been decimated since the 18-day uprising in 2011 against autocrat leader Hosni Mubarak and the political turmoil that followed and continues to this day.

Luxor's hotels are currently about 25 percent full in what is supposed to be the peak of the winter season.

Scared off by the political turmoil and tenuous security that has followed the uprising, the number of tourists coming to Egypt fell to 9.8 million in 2011 from 14.7 million the year before, and revenues plunged 30 percent to $8.8 billion.

Poverty swelled at the country's fastest rate in Luxor, which is highly dependent on visitors to its monumental temples and the tombs of King Tutankhamun and other pharaohs. In 2011, 39 percent of its population lived on less than $1 a day, compared to 18 percent in 2009, according to government figures.

Read More..